"What"s your name?" asked the inspector. "Riccardo," replied the man. "Why?" Well, Mr. Riccardo, we have reason to believe that your lions are keeping a pearl necklace somewhere about their cage or their persons."
Riccardo"s eyes nearly fell out of his head. He stared at the inspector as if he couldn"t believe his ears.
"Open the cage and go in and search," said the inspector. "Search for loose boards or anywhere that pearls could be hidden."
Riccardo unlocked the cage, still looking too astonished for words. The lions watched him come in, and one of them suddenly purred like a cat, but much more loudly.
Riccardo sounded the boards. None was loose. He turned, puzzled, to the watching people. "Sir," he said, "you can see that this cage is bare except for the lions-and they could not hide pearls, not even in their manes-they would scratch them out."
Peter was watching Louis"s face. Louis was looking at the big water-trough very anxiously indeed. Peter nudged the inspector.
"Tell him to examine the water-trough!" he said.
Riccardo went over to it. He picked it up and emptied out the water. "Turn it upside down," called the inspector. Riccardo did so-and then he gave an exclamation.
"It has a false bottom soldered to it!" he cried. "See, sir-this should not be here!"
He showed everyone the underneath of the water-trough. Sure enough, someone had soldered on an extra piece, that made a most ingenious false bottom. Riccardo took a tool from his belt and levered off the extra bottom.
Something fell out to the floor of the cage. "The pearls!" shouted all the children at once, and the lions looked up in alarm at the noise. Riccardo pa.s.sed the pearls through the bars of the cage, and then turned to calm his lions. The little bear, who was now by Janet, grunted in fear when he heard the lions snarling. Janet tried to lift him up, but she couldn"t.
"Very satisfactory," said the inspector, putting the magnificent necklace into his pocket. The children heard a slight noise, and turned to see Louis being marched firmly away by the two policemen. He pa.s.sed a clothesline-and there again were the blue socks, that had helped to give him away, flapping in the wind!
"Come along," said the inspector, shooing the seven children in front of him. "We"ll all go and see Lady Lucy Thomas-and you shall tell her the story of your latest adventure from beginning to end. She"ll want to reward you-so I hope you"ll have some good ideas! What do you want, Janet?"
"I suppose," said Janet, looking down at the little bear still trotting beside her, "I suppose she wouldn"t give me a little bear, would she? One like this, but smaller so that I could lift him up? Pam would like one, too, I know."
The inspector roared with laughter. "Well, Secret Seven, ask for bears or anything you like-a whole circus if you want it. You deserve it. I really don"t know what I should do without the help of the S.S.S! You"ll help me again in the future, won"t you?"
"Rather!" said the Seven at once. And you may be sure they will!